I too am a child of '73 so a lot of what you listed Vader121 holds true for me as well.

- Hot Wheels & Matchbox cars

- Tonka Trucks: the real metal ones not these modern plastic ones they sell now.

- Army men: I think I 500+ green army men as well as a fleet of vehicles. My pride and joy was a Guns of Navarone plastic mountain that had an elevator and gun implacements. Even now when my old neighbors till their garden they turn up green army men!!! 20+ years and there are still army men hidden among the dirt. :)

-Legos: I started with the space series but then got hooked on the castle sets. I had all but 1 of the castles and would routinely spend one month each winter taking over the dining room table to set up the entire collection. (then spend a day destroying it by shooting it apart with rubberbands).

-Slotcars: Between my brother and myself we had TONS of track. I think we had 4 or 5 sets that we combined together. Man those were a lot of fun.

-Guns: Before everyone started freaking out about kids having realistic guns I had a couple of these real looking pistol and rifle cap guns. (remember the ones that took the plastic strip of caps?) We would spend an entire day running around the woods behind our house playing Army.

- Transformers/Gobots: I started getting Gobots from a family friend a year or so before they hit the domestic shelves. She would find these import toys at some bizarre store on the east coast and send them my way. I was hooked right off the bat. :) Soon after Gobots hit the local toy shelves Transformers came around and blew Gobots away. I still have all my transforming robots still on display.

- GI Joe/Star Wars: These were the big toy lines to have around the neighborhood. I never had a lot of stuff but enough to keep me busy for hours on end. One kid down the street had the 12" figures. I remember being in absolute awe of them as they were SO big. That exposure (and perhaps jealous reaction) led me to my large interest in the modern 12" line.

Lincoln Logs: These were great for building stuff for other action figures. The current sets aren't quite the same as they include too many plastic filler pieces.

Cardboard Boxes: It's true, sometimes the box stuff comes in is the best play toy. Anytime someone would get a new refigerator, oven or other large appliance we would use the box for about a week afterwards until our playing ended up destroying it.

Beyond the toys the other items that a child of the 1970's couldn't be without was a Big Wheel and eventually a bike. Everyday was an adventure outside unless the weather was horrible. Even the toys spent most of their time outside. I shudder at the thought of raising a kid today with the computers and cable television.

dr_evazan22

01-19-2005, 05:16 PM

One word:

SHOGUN WARRIORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The big freakin' ones and the smaller die cast were super cool.

Green army men to set up and my gun that shot suction cup 'arrows' to shoot them down.

D and D in my early teens.

Glass bottles! My friend Jim and I would go to the park where the kids drank and break them.... Throw them up in the air and watch them splat on the pavement, throw them at rocks, sometimes at each other a la Dodgeball. This would go on for hours weekend after weekend.

James Boba Fettfield

01-19-2005, 05:59 PM

I had a hodge podge of stuff from Joes to Ghostbusters, surprisingly no Star Wars stuff. I was born in '84, so you can see the era I grew up in.

Favorites? Jurassic Park was probably the last toy line I can remember wanting to get a lot. I still have all of that stuff, and I could not get enough of it. I was really into that line and I had many great memories of that talking command compound. That computer would go off about dinosaurs breaking down fences and would follow with telling me: Jurassic Park compound secure.

I remember cardboard boxes. We used box parts from a pool table to construct a hobo home that would make the bum from In Living Color proud. I think LM remembers that creation of mine.

Ninja Turtles was another big one. I can still remember receiving the original Turtles with the soft heads, then they gave them these hard plastic heads. I don't think I had a good idea what the toys were supposed to be of when I got them, but I gave those things many hours of play.

The big line before that was Silverhawks and Thundercats. Anyone remember those? I had a good chunk of those lines, too.

Best thing about these toys is that I still have them all. No one in my house throws anything out and never gives anything away, so I have no worries about coming home to find out someone cleaned house. Those were my favorites and I'm still glad to have all of it today.

You know I forgot to add the Predator line of toys. I had a lot of those boys (missing a variant and the electronic one) and they went right along with Jurassic Park. I think I was collecting those two lines right around the same time in my life. No alien figures, though. I had the Mantis Alien so the Preds could tear it a new one, but I loved the Preds more.

Slicker

01-19-2005, 06:03 PM

I was born in '81 and the only toys that I can recall playing with as a kid were Legos. I had so many and still do. I've still got all of them put together, with instructions, and some still have the original boxes. I've been a pack-rat since the beginning.

I also vaguely recall playing with my oldest brothers SW figs and once again I vaguely recall buying the POTF Klatuu Skiff Guard.

Kidhuman

01-19-2005, 09:25 PM

OK, I mostly played with SW toys, but some of the other stuff I had were Sho-gun Warriors, which were sweet as can be. I dabbled in G.I. Joe and Voltron after SW died down. I had Transformers as well. I even bought a couple of Go-Bots. I didnt collect Hot Wheels, but instread Fast Ones. Anyone remember those?

BTW I too am a child of 73.

Ji'dai

01-19-2005, 10:25 PM

-Star Wars
I probably saw Star Wars when it had a wider release to theaters in 1978. I've been collecting the toys since then.

-Hot Wheels & Matchbox cars
We used to build a city layout on the sidewalk with white rock from the driveway. Also had the portable city that folded up.

-Lionel Trains
One of my first toys was a Lionel Train set. I could sit and watch it go round for hours. My Dad later bought a large train board with an attached track layout at Goodwill. It had remote switches and everything.

-Big Tonka trucks
The sandpile was a lot of fun. I had a bunch of Tonka trucks too. We'd even run a hose over to the pile to make little rivers through the city when our parents weren't home. My sandpile days ended when my Dad mixed gravel with it to make the concrete for the garage.

-Guns (used to love running around the neighborhood playing guns)
We loved to play 'guns.' That's even what we called it back then too. "Wanna play guns?" "Yeah!"

-GiJoe
Got into GI Joe big time when Kenner stopped making Star Wars toys. I really loved the comic and cartoon, but mostly just collected Cobra action figures.

-Transformers
I was never too enthusiastic about Transformers, but I did watch the cartoon and read the comic. Only have a few toys, last ones I got were from the 80's movie.

-LEGO
Started out with Universal sets then migrated to Space. I also got quite a few Town and a couple Castle sets too.

-Assorted other action figure lines like Battlestar Galactica, Tron, Crystar, DC Superheroes, and Fisher-Price 4" action figures which were very cool. I still have my red Tron light cycle and was really surprised to see them at retail again a few years ago!

I had a Green Machine when I was little. Big green monster ride on toy that you could do 180s on if you got going fast enough. They re-released this thing last year!

I forgot about Shogun Warriors. I never had one but a kid from school did and man were they awesome. Their size was daunting for a kid and the weapons were actually scary. I remember there being reports on the network news about them as groups were trying to get them pulled from the shelves because the weapons were so dangerous. The spring loaded fist would shoot across a room easily and would just as easily bruise your skin. Awesome stuff for a kid. :D

aceguide

01-20-2005, 08:57 AM

1972...

My pride and joy was a Guns of Navarone plastic mountain that had an elevator and gun implacements.

Classic play set. Vital in army men playing.

In addition to the plastic variety I had a lot of the Britains scale army, cowboy and knights - the plastic ones, not the lead ones.

Also BIG into legos.

SW

Gi Joe

I will also second the "guns" comment by Ji'Dai. It seems like we were always playing guns, creating guns. This lead to quite a collection of Army/Navy surplus equipment. Always a good time.

Then there was the WIDE variety of 3 3/4" fellas from all manner of movie and TV shows. A very eclectic collection if I remember correctly.

Did anyone else have the white space ship - it might have been Galactica - it was pretty big, not quite to the 3 3/4" scale, the cockpit came off as an escape pod, had a cargo bay. Cant' place it's name, but it was a favorite.

vader121

01-20-2005, 09:00 AM

thanks to you all I now remember some other toy lines, etc. that I used to play with as a kid.

-Shogun Warriors = had some of the small 3 3/4 figures. They were very cool.
-Big Wheel = every kid had one and every kid must have one. These were awesome! Neighbor had the Green Machine which was very cool too. My Big Wheel was kinda of a generic one. I did remember that my friends had Night Rider & Dukes of Hazzard ones.
-Guns of Navarone set = I too had this set and it was awesome. Spent countless hours setting up and then acting out the huge battle between the onrushing US, etc. troops against the, thought-to-be, impenetrable Navarone stronghold. Battles took hours and eventually the US troops would infiltrate the mountain and go level to level killing off the Germans. Good times.
-Fort Apache set = another favorite. My Dad built it on a board with the green paper. Had it ready for a while. It eventually fell apart and I had to set it up old school and have my battles. Those Indians would just keep coming. Hours of fun.
-Small 1/72 scale army men = MPC put these out for hobbyists but I loved them for play. KB and I think Childworld had these. They came in a small box and were on trees to pull from. They had all sorts of poses and could be painted if you had the drive. Some sets that I had were Vikings, Indians, German infantry, German Mountain troops, & US cavalry. I did paint my 1/48 scale troops over a winter one time. Looking back they weren't painted very well but they looked so cool in the battles with actual flesh colored skin, etc.
-Lincoln logs & tinker toys = staples for any kid growing up in the late 70's to early 80's.

Kidhuman

01-20-2005, 09:48 AM

-Lincoln logs & tinker toys = staples for any kid growing up in the late 70's to early 80's.

Tinker toys were awesome. I had a bunch of those. Wish I still did have them.

Ji'dai

01-20-2005, 11:16 AM

Did anyone else have the white space ship - it might have been Galactica - it was pretty big, not quite to the 3 3/4" scale, the cockpit came off as an escape pod, had a cargo bay. Cant' place it's name, but it was a favorite.

Was it from Space: 1999? My neighbor had the long white ship from that TV series. Reminded me of the Rebel Blockade Runner.

I had Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys too. Lincoln Logs were cool, but not as neat as LEGO. I also had this other construction toy with plastic girders and plastic squares that you used to build skyscrapers.

vader121

01-20-2005, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by aceguide
Did anyone else have the white space ship - it might have been Galactica - it was pretty big, not quite to the 3 3/4" scale, the cockpit came off as an escape pod, had a cargo bay. Cant' place it's name, but it was a favorite.
I think you are referring to the Star Bird. Was made by Milton Bradley. Had cool effect of rusing when you held the ship up. good laser sounds too. They made a Star Base (?) for it too that was cardboard and came with some accessories like a few atronauts and some vehicles and stuff.

I still have it. Only thing broken of missing si the middle gun. Was a chinsy gun attached to a track ball in the middle. Broke off real easy.

CaptainSolo1138

01-20-2005, 12:01 PM

Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were always my favs. They had lots of playability and were nearly unbreakable. That meant alot to us poor folk (or at least those of us who didn't get new toys all of th time.)

Exhaust Port

01-20-2005, 03:50 PM

It's great to see that I wasn't the only Guns of Navarone playset owner here. :D I wish I could find some better pictures of it.

I remember day dreaming looking through the JC Penny catalog for months as I saved every penny to buy my very own Guns of Navarone playset. Actually it was a toss up between that or the SW Snow Speeder but I opted for the GoN playset. With the hours of use I know I made the right choice.

vader121

01-21-2005, 01:11 PM

Hey Exhaust Port,

Mine was a more modern version than the one shown in those photos. Biggest (and only?) difference was the Germans were white in color.

I remember there was another ww2 playset that my friend had that had lots of battlefield accesories like a bunker, foxholes, barbwire, mines, machine gun, bridge, and trees. I somehow ended up with that stuff too, must have been in another set my parents bought me. That was awesome too and the battlefied accessories were very cool to use in the battle for Navarone.

Side-note: One of my alltime greatest memories as a kid was that my Dad would play war with me and he would come up with the coolest stories that we would act out with the army men and stuff. That was awesome!

JON9000

01-21-2005, 01:40 PM

GIJoe
MASK
He-MAn
Transformers
Star Wars

aceguide

01-21-2005, 03:35 PM

Was it from Space: 1999? My neighbor had the long white ship from that TV series. Reminded me of the Rebel Blockade Runner.

That's it! Had both the large and the die cast versions. Great toys.

There were 2 Navarone sets. I had the original, my younger brother had a little later one. The figs were different colors and I seem to remember this mountain itself was another color as well.

I forgot about the other Kenner-Lucasfilm merchandising machine from the early 80s: Indiana Jones figures, vehicles and playsets. They were tough to find in my area. I think all the toys I got were ordered by my mom from department store christmas catalogs. Though I remember seeing the toys in Children's Palaces (are they still around? They were like TRUs - which probably took over their market).

I've got:

Indiana Jones (raiders gear, Arab garb, and German uniform), Marion (white dress), Sallah, Toht, Cairo Swordsman, Belloq, and German Mechanic. I also have the Well of Souls with Ark of the Covenant and the Map Room playsets.

The plastic "stone" cover for the Ark even has heiroglyphs of R2 and 3PO! I'm missing a couple of the snakes from the Well of Souls playset but other than that everything is complete.

I was tempted to buy some of the new Disney IJ action figures but man, they really suck. Plus the scale is not quite equal to the vintage figs.

vader121

01-24-2005, 02:17 PM

As a kid I never even knew they made Indiana Jones toys. Just never noticed them in the stores or something. Needless to say I never had any of them. They are cool though.

Reefer Shark

01-24-2005, 08:53 PM

Yeah, I was into all those mid-70's to early 80's toys as well. Mainly SW (of course) & GIJoe, but I also had figures from all those movie/TV lines (Clash of the Titans, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, Indiana Jones, etc... etc...).

Another line I remember really enjoying was the Power Lords action figures (I think that's what it was called?). Was anyone else into those?

"Playing guns" was also a favorite pastime, as well as bashing the crap out of each other with those plastic swords & lightsabers. We ruled the hood!

RooJay

02-01-2005, 12:57 PM

My favorites were of course Star Wars, GIJoe, and He-Man, and Mego figures before them. I also have many a fond memory of my Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. In fact, it seems just yesterday that Evel made his triumphant jump across Back Porch Canyon...

Going a bit further back, I really enjoyed my Sit 'N Spin and my Fisher Price Ice Cream Cart, filled with lots of plastic popsicles and cones! Perhaps my most fondly remembered childhood toy was my Milky the Cow. She was a big plastic dairy cow, articulated at the neck and with soft plastic udders that came with a plastic trough, a little milking bucket, and packets of a powdered milk-like substance. One would mix the powder from one of the packets with water to fill the trough, push Milky's neck down for a drink and pump her tail causing her to 'drink' up the liquid. You could then get out your little milk bucket and actually milk her (I am not kidding) by gently tugging on her rubberized teats. It sounds sick, I know, but when I was little I thought it was quite fun! The process also worked (and was much prefferable) if you used actual milk instead of the powdered stuff she came with. I have seen her on Ebay from time to time, and would very much like to own one again. Why here's one now, though a bit out of my price range:

Im still a kid... SO HA well im 14 so w/e, anyways, if i were to list all my toys i would crash this site... I had so much crap its not even funny, im still going through it now, But like last week now that im so into starwars fig collecting... I went to my garage du du du... And i found 2 huge boxes marked STARWARS, Friggin sweet, i found at least 200 figs loose going all the way back to like 1993, I deid, was revived, then set up my little Chicken walker scene with everything.

Some how i have a complete Shhadows of the empire line...

Kidhuman

02-13-2005, 09:59 AM

, i found at least 200 figs loose going all the way back to like 1993,

They were released in 1995, so thats when they date back to

General_Grievous

02-13-2005, 03:25 PM

Unless he means some of those Bendy figures. They were released around 1993. I had some of them, but they weren't very good.

Joshkj

02-13-2005, 05:23 PM

Unless he means some of those Bendy figures. They were released around 1993. I had some of them, but they weren't very good.

hmm when i loooked some of thesee up they said released in 93 so you must be right:confused: